Innovation support and exploitation

Secure the future of your project innovations

Horizon Nua helps research and development projects to secure the sustainability of your project innovations. We have an impressive track record in supporting over 100 different project innovations from creative commons publications to online apps and start-up enterprises. We love working with innovators and seeing their ideas reach wider audiences.

How we do it

Exploitation development strategies

We work with coordinators and Work Package leaders to develop and deliver strategies and action plans for exploitation of project results. This is usually a stand alone task and forms part of the contractual requirements of many projects.

Knowledge management guidelines & emerging intellectual property

We work with partners to create knowledge management guidelines and directories mapping background and emerging IPR. Throughout the project, we work with partners to identify new knowledge created and the different routes to exploitation. We believe in starting early and building partner skills and resources for exploitation throughout.

Guidance and signposting to relevant EU supports

We work closely with existing innovation ecosystem providers from incubators and accelerators to the EC IPR helpdesk to ensure start-ups have access to the latest knowledge, where possible in local language.

Support for early stage start-ups

This is the fun part!  We have worked intensively with multiple start-ups from EU projects to bring their ideas to reality via commercial or social enterprise models. We support early stage startups in business planning development, help them build a strong narrative around their vision, provide pitch training and organise enterprise showcases for potential investors or partnerships. 

Who is this service for?

  • Project coordinators for Horizon Europe and other national and EU funding calls and projects

  • Research and academic organisations

  • Policy makers at local, regional and national level.

  • Industry bodies

  • NGO’s

Contact our team

Our innovators

Connecting Ecology

"The support that we received from the Horizon Nua business planning process was invaluable to us as novices to setting up a business. From creating a pitch to providing us with opportunities to discuss challenges with other new nature-based enterprises, we were able to develop a much firmer foundation for our new endeavour"

Stuart Connop,
Connecting Ecology Ltd

Our work with Connecting Ecology

During their business planning sessions with Horizon Nua, Connecting Ecology identified their need for ongoing support in business start-up and management, marketing/media skills and looked at staffing issues to ensure that the team will be adequately resourced to meet the expected demand for services. Connecting Ecology was linked into the local accelerator for NBS at the University of East London to support their business development journey.

Urban by Nature

“Working with Horizon Nua was inspiring and catalysed the creation of a business plan for the continuity of the UrbanByNature Programme. Horizon Nua's knowledge, expertise, and prompting questions helped us navigate through our business strategy process.”

Anna Bruen and Daniela Rizzi,
ICLEI Europe
UrbanbyNature Programme

Our work with Urban by Nature

The UrbanByNature programme supports cities and practitioners in planning for and applying NBS that are cost-effective and mutually beneficial. Cities play a key role in fostering this transformative change towards more liveable, resilient and regenerative futures. Some cities are already leading on climate action and in implementing NBS in a participatory way. Through the Connecting Nature project, UrbanByNature was created for local governments all around the world at different stages of NbS implementation from those who are already doing a lot to those who are just starting to use NbS to address major urban challenges. It is an empowering, facilitated expertise-sharing, and capacity-building programme focusing on how to harness the boundless potential of nature for sustainable urban development. Urban by Nature has continued to expand to include regional UrbanbyNature Hubs providing supports to local players in local language.

As part of the innovation support through  Connecting Nature, Horizon Nua worked with UbN programme managers ICLEI Europe to explore options around global trademarking the Urban by Nature programme and developing a sustainable business model for the brand.